<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:10pt"><div><span>It's often strange to see a favorite book through another reader's eyes. I find fantasy in every word and sentence of the book and can't imagine seeing it otherwise. <br></span></div><div><span><br></span></div><div><span>Perhaps this is because I approach Wolfe and fantasy from a third perspective in addition to those mentioned: (1) ideology (Catholicism) and (2) sensibility (pre-postmodernism, as someone put it). A fourth approach might be science. But I consider style over all else; to me, style defines SF.<br></span></div><div><br><span></span></div><div><span>What writers like Charles de Lint do is called "urban fantasy" by some. I find the "fantasy" in these stories to be highly separable from the "urban" part, which invariably holds no interest for me because its style is
flat.</span></div><div><br><span></span></div><div><span>What Crowley does shows how de Lint falls flat.</span></div><div><br></div> <div style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <div style="font-family: times new roman, new york, times, serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font face="Arial" size="2"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Jeff Wilson <jwilson@clueland.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> The Urth Mailing List <urth@lists.urth.net> <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, April 18, 2012 8:11 AM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: (urth) If I already like ...<br> </font> </div> <br>
On 4/18/2012 6:59 AM, David Stockhoff wrote:<br>> On 4/17/2012 10:42 PM, Jeff Wilson wrote:<br>>> On 4/17/2012 2:08 PM, Jerry Friedman wrote:<br>>>> I strongly second the recommendation for Crowley, and I'd start with<br>>>> /Little, Big, /although he's never written anything bad since /Beasts/.<br>>><br>>> _Little, Big_ was a disappointment for me. Part of the novel is urban,<br>>> but the specks of actual fantasy come before and after.<br>>><br>><br>> Do you mean classic Victorian-style fantasy vs urban fantasy?<br><br><br>I was ready for either, but outside of a talking fish and bird, I came <br>up empty. It has to be the least fantastic fantasy I've ever encountered.<br><br>Other than that, it was okay.<br><br><br>-- <br>Jeff Wilson - <a ymailto="mailto:jwilson@clueland.com" href="mailto:jwilson@clueland.com">jwilson@clueland.com</a><br>Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M
Texarkana<br>< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL ><br>_______________________________________________<br>Urth Mailing List<br>To post, write <a ymailto="mailto:urth@urth.net" href="mailto:urth@urth.net">urth@urth.net</a><br>Subscription/information: http://www.urth.net<br><br><br> </div> </div> </div></body></html>